WRITING QUOTES X

quotations about writing

I know exactly what I want to write. I do not write until I do. Usually I write it all down only once. And that goes relatively quickly, since it really depends only on how fast I type.

HANNAH ARENDT

interview, ZDF TV, Zur Person, October 28, 1964

Tags: Hannah Arendt


The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of history.

JOHN DOS PASSOS

"The Business of a Novelist"


Lucky the one who writes in a book of spiral-bound mornings
a future in ink, who writes hand unshaking

JANE HIRSHFIELD

"Sweater"

Tags: Jane Hirshfield


I like to write. Sometimes I'm afraid that I like it too much because when I get into work I don't want to leave it. As a result I'll go for days and days without leaving the house or wherever I happen to be. I'll go out long enough to get papers and pick up some food and that's it. It's strange, but instead of hating writing I love it too much.

HARPER LEE

interview with Roy Newquist, Counterpoints, 1964

Tags: Harper Lee


In my view, if you write every day you're a certified graphomaniac, you're OCD, you're addicted to the physical act and not the real, spiritual one.

ROSEMARY JENKINSON

"Writing is not about youth but about spark", Irish Times, March 27, 2017


This is a slow business to have success in. There are exceptions, but for the most part it's kind of like the last writer standing.... I've got gray. I've got plenty of gray. I'm creating a career slowly, like a coral reef.

ROBERT REED

Lincoln Journal Star, January 11, 2004

Tags: Robert Reed


Transitions are usually not that interesting. I use space breaks instead, and a lot of them. A space break makes a clean segue whereas some segues you try to write sound convenient, contrived. The white space sets off, underscores, the writing presented, and you have to be sure it deserves to be highlighted this way. If used honestly and not as a gimmick, these spaces can signify the way the mind really works, noting moments and assembling them in such a way that a kind of logic or pattern comes forward, until the accretion of moments forms a whole experience, observation, state of being. The connective tissue of a story is often the white space, which is not empty.

AMY HEMPEL

The Paris Review, summer 2003

Tags: Amy Hempel


Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army!

HILAIRE BELLOC

The Path to Rome

Tags: Hilaire Belloc


So it is with all great writers: the beauty of their sentences is as unforeseeable as is that of a woman whom we have never seen; it is creative, because it is applied to an external object which they have thought of -- as opposed to thinking about themselves -- and to which they have not yet given expression.

MARCEL PROUST

Within a Budding Grove

Tags: Marcel Proust


Things that you write are in some degree autobiographical, but the first thing you find out about autobiography is that it's the hardest thing in the world to write. It's hard because it's very difficult to be absolutely factual about yourself. So ... when you write, you may draw on facts from your own life, but if their not in harmony with your story, they're worse than useless. You just stumble over them.

SAUL BELLOW

Q & A at Howard Community College, February 1986


Think what it would mean if you could teach, or if you could learn the art of writing. Why, every book, every newspaper you'd pick up, would tell the truth, or create beauty. But there is, it would appear, some obstacle in the way, some hindrance to the teaching of words. For though at this moment at least a hundred professors are lecturing on the literature of the past, at least a thousand critics are reviewing the literature of the present, and hundreds upon hundreds of young men and women are passing examinations in English literature with the utmost credit, still -- do we write better, do we read better than we read and wrote four hundred years ago when we were un-lectured, un-criticized, untaught?

VIRGINIA WOOLF

"Words Fail Me", BBC radio, April 29, 1937

Tags: Virginia Woolf


We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time.

ANNE LAMOTT

Bird by Bird

Tags: Anne Lamott


Read heavily in the area where you want to write. Be aware of what's selling and what's doing well but don't try to write to market trends; they are fleeting.

JEFF ABBOTT

interview, Book Browse


Fine writing is generally the effect of spontaneous thoughts and a labored style.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE

Essays on Men and Manners


I've come to believe that a huge part of getting better at writing is forcing yourself to see the things that have been in the corner of your eye all along. That means writing stories that include characters from other cultures and backgrounds--but also, being more open to other viewpoints in general. It also means interrogating all of your other lazy ideas and drilling into all of the "of courses" that you let yourself get away with.

CHARLIE JANE ANDERS

"The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do To Make Your Writing More Awesome", Gizmodo, February 25, 2016


Many writers are there that paint a stolen jade and sell it for a colt at the nearest fair.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

Tags: Austin O'Malley


Every writer is an iron-monger that melts down old junk into new steel.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

Tags: Austin O'Malley


Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

JOHN STEINBECK

Quote Magazine, June 18, 1961

Tags: John Steinbeck


Here are the two states in which you may exist: person who writes, or person who does not. If you write: you are a writer. If you do not write: you are not. Aspiring is a meaningless null state that romanticizes Not Writing. It's as ludicrous as saying, "I aspire to pick up that piece of paper that fell on the floor." Either pick it up or don't. I don’t want to hear about how your diaper's full. Take it off or stop talking about it.

CHUCK WENDIG

The Kick-Ass Writer


The text you write must prove to me that it desires me.

ROLAND BARTHES

The Pleasures of the Text